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This guide is designed to help you find the sources you need for your annotated bibliography.
Getting Started
Your assignment is to demonstrate your research skills by identifying sources relevant to the course topic decided upon and the specific issue you are pursuing. You need to:
- Gather 10 sources, of which you need:
- 3 scholarly sources
- 3 professional sources
- 4 sources of your choice. No more than 2 may be from the internet (do not use Wikipedia).
Books
Books are good for:
- In-depth, background information
- Context - can help you understand how your topic fits into the bigger picture;
- Historical and social - will help you understand the historical and/or social issues surrounding your topic.
To search for books, use a library catalog. Depending on how much time you have, you have a couple of options:
Can't think of terms to describe
your topic? Library catalogs use
specific subject headings to group related
books together. A good strategy
is to:
- enter
a keyword or two
- scan the list for a title that sounds
interesting
- click on the subject headings for that book
- scan
the list of subject headings for ones that are of interest
- click
on another subject heading to search for more items
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Articles
Articles are good for:
- Specific and focused information - articles offer a more focused topic compared with books, which often look broadly at your topic;
- Analysis or research - because of their focus you will find detailed analysis and research results presented in scholarly articles;
- Brief - They are often a good fit for college research, because they can demonstrate how to deal with a topic in such a short amount of space.
To
find articles, you need to start with a research
database- you can search hundreds or even thousands
of journals at once.
VIDEO: Learn how to find articles (approx. 6 min.) 
 Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Sources (from Cornell University Library)
See an article you want in one of these
databases?
- Look for the link to the full-text - HTML or PDF
- Click on
 to get the full-text or request it through interlibrary loan (free).
- Ask a librarian for help
Databases for this assignment
Because this assignment is interdisciplinary, you have a variety of databases to choose from. These are a few suggestions for interdisciplinary databases:
- Academic Search Premier This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more.
Use for scholarly and professional articles
- CQ Researcher
Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in-depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology.
Use for professional articles
- Lexis Nexis Academic
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information.
Use for news and professional articles
- JSTOR
Contains (EXCEPT for the latest five years) core scholarly journals in sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American studies, Asian studies, and biological, health & general sciences.
Use for scholarly articles
- LexisNexis Statistical
A collection of statistical tables and links to publications that the tables come from.
Use for statistics
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Websites
Websites are good for:
- Statistics - Many statistics are available on the web from government institutions, non-profit organizations and educational institutions;
- Unusual items - some topics may not be published in a book or article,but you can find it online.
If you choose to use websites as 2 of your sources, you'll need to evaluate them for quality. You can do this by answering these four questions:
- Who made this site?
- What is the purpose?
- Where did the information come from?
- How current is the website?
For a detailed chart on these questions, click here.
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Citing Sources
As you write your paper, you'll need
to cite passages and ideas from the sources
you've found. Check with your professor
which style is preferred for this assignment. KnightCite is also a great way to get help writing your citations.
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APA: Publication manual
of the American Psychological Association.
5th ed. Washington, DC : American
Psychological Association, 2001.
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MLA handbook
for writers of research papers.
6th ed. New York : Modern Language
Association of America, 2003.
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